Vancouver

Vigil for Palestinian Prisoner Khader Adnan

On 61st day of Hunger Strike

5:00pm
- 6:30pm
Thursday February 16 2012

Join us for a VIGIL and PROTEST for Khader Adnan, Palestinian prisoner on the 61st day of his Hunger Strike, protesting his arbitrary detention without charge. We will stand outside the CBC building to highlight Khader Adnan's invisibility - and the invisibility of the Palestinian voice - on CBC and in Canadian media.

This vigil comes in response to an urgent call for international solidarity from Randa Adnan, Khader Adnan's wife, and Jihad Adnan, Khader Adnan's father. Khader Adnan is a Palestinian political activist, baker, husband and father who is being held in administrative detention by the Israeli occupation military forces. Administrative detention is detention without charge, based only on secret evidence, indefinitely renewable by military judges. 

Khader Adnan has previously been arrested seven times and has spent six years in Israeli occupation prisons - most under administrative detention, again without charge or trial.

His hunger strike has now lasted 61 days. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called for Khader Adnan to be charged or released. Thousands of people around the world have called for his release. In Palestine, dozens have been injured as protests calling for his release were attacked with tear gas and rubber bullets. 

Despite these calls, an Israeli military appeal upheld Khader's administrative detention on Monday. He has still not been - and will not be - charged with any crime. Khader Adnan is demanding the end of administrative detention in Palestine.

And here in Canada, Khader Adnan's case has been missing from the Canadian media - ignored and silenced - while the Harper government parades its unconditional support of Israel (and its illegal settlements, land confiscation, and detention without charge).

Khader Adnan has been on hunger strike since December 17, 2011, when he was seized from his home in Arraba outside Jenin in the occupied West Bank of Palestine by Israeli soldiers Before entering his house, soldiers used the driver that takes Khader’s father to the vegetable market, Mohammad Mustafa, as a human shield by forcing him to knock on the door of the house and call out Khader’s name while blindfolded. Khader Adnan was tortured and abused - and has never been charged with any crime.

For more information on Khader's case: http://samidoun.ca/2012/02/urgent-heed-randa-adnans-call-military-court-rejects-khader-adnans-appeal-in-de-facto-death-sentence/